What is Film Noir?
Film noir (French for 'black film' or 'dark film') is a cinematic term used to describe stylised black and white Hollywood movies within the Crime genre, particularly ones that emphasise sexual motivations and cynical attitudes. A lot of the typical stories in Film noir derive from the 'hardboiled' or 'pulp fiction' school of crime fiction that emerged in the US during the Great Depression.
The term film noir was first applied to Hollywood by french critic Nino Frank in 1946 despite this term being largely unrecognised by most American film professionals during the time. Before the term was widely recognised and adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films that fit the film noir style were referred to as melodramas. Whether film noir can be seen as a distinct genre is still an ongoing debate.
Generally, films of the film noir style include a lot of stylised visuals, including carefully cast shadows, distinct silhouettes and sometimes hard, bright lighting to contrast the low lighting that dominates most of film noir. Film noir is often associated with a low key visual style that has roots within German expressionism cinematography.
What is Classical Hollywood?
Classical Hollywood is term used by film critics that designates both a narrative and visual style of filmmaking which was developed in and characterised in American cinema between 1917 and the early 1960s.
Classical Hollywood is split up into two eras: Silent and Sound.
Notable films within the silent era include 'The Mothering Heart', 'A Woman of Paris' and '7th Heaven'. Notable films within the sound era include 'Citizen Kane', 'Casablanca' and 'Psycho'.
The visual-narrative style of classical Hollywood was heavily influenced by the Renaissance and its resurgence of mankind as the focal point. This style is split up into three general levels; devices, systems and the relation of systems.
The devices most inherent to classical Hollywood are those of continuity or 'invisible' editing. The systems within classical Hollywood are narrative logic, cinematic time and cinematic space. The relation of systems in classical Hollywood is that the aspects of time and space are subordinated to the narrative element of the film.
What is the Studio System?
The studio system, which was used during a period known as the 'Golden Age of Hollywood', was a method of film production and distribution dominated by a small cluster of 'major' studios within Hollywood at the time. These were split into two categorical groups; 'The Big Five', which included MGM, Paramount, Warner Brothers, RKO and Fox, and 'The Little Three', which included Universal, Colombia and United Artists.
An important part of the studio system was a practice known as ‘block booking’. A studio would sell multiple films to theaters as a unit. This would typically include only one attractive, A-budget movie that the theaters really wanted and the rest would be a mix of A-budget pictures of dubious quality and lower budgeted B-movies. Because of block booking studios could make a lot of movies, most of them with a low budget and of low quality, and still be sure that they would be seen in theaters.
Another vital part of the studio system was the fact that ‘The Big Five’ had controlling stakes in their own theater chains, which were exempt from block booking. In some cases, one studio would even control all the theaters in a city. This ensured that their films would be distributed, no matter the quality. ‘The Little Three’ would never own more than small theater circuits. By 1945, the studios owned either partially or outright 17% of the theaters in America, accounting for 45% of the film-rental revenue.
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